The Moralistic Fallacy

How value judgments cloud social thought.

City Journal's Kay Hymowitz weighed in over the holidays with a response to our Dec. 16 column, in which we faulted the premise of her earlier article titled "Boy Trouble." She maintains that the main body of the article (which we described as "informative and important") is responsive to our criticism:

"Men traditionally sought to 'better themselves' not because working in an office or on an assembly line was itself a source of delight, but because being a workingman enabled them to earn respect and made possible the joys of domestic life," Taranto writes. I've made a similar point...